Christmas Wounds
by ForevermoreNevermore
Summary: “No money? Well I’m sure we can find a way to get some… don’t you worry your pretty blond head about it…” the man ran his hand through Yamato’s hair, causing a shiver to run down his spine. Rated T just for safety


_My evil seed kicked in on this story. I felt like torturing someone... sorry... OH! And when you think of what they look like, picture them in the second season.  
_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon.  
_

The brisk wind whipped through the small street, causing the blond band member to grab the edges of his jacket and pull them closer across his stomach. His shaggy hair kept blowing in his face and he cursed slightly at having to choose between moving his hair and allowing his stomach to freeze, or possibly running into a wall. Obviously he chose the latter as he ran into a hurried older women.

"I'm sorry!" Yamato yelped as the lady shot him daggers. _Christmas is supposed to be the time of good cheer._ "Merry Christmas!" he shot at her back. He took a few more steps and then stopped to catch his breath. The cold air assaulted his lungs and nose, so he ducked into a small store.

The warm air warmed his body and saved his nose with the smell of coffee. He checked his watch and then peered out the window. The sun was setting.

He sighed, "dang it!" Then his pocket vibrated gently, causing him to pull it out and answer it. "Hey Taichi."

"_HeyYamato! Where are you? Your brother's already here and I'm tired of being stuck with the love birds!"_ Yamato sighed, his brother had recently decided to confess to Hikari that he loved her, and they finally hooked up. As Christmas came up, they decided to have a 'special' dinner… at Taichi's house. Taichi, being like the chaperone was sick of the two's affectionate snuggling, decided that the other brother needed to suffer just as much.

"I'm coming! I got held up at band practice," Yamato sighed, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to salvage any sort of cool style out of it.

"_Uh-huh… was the hold up called Sora?_" Matt honestly didn't feel like explaining that Sora was out of town for the holidays.

"Yeah."

There was a muffled laugh, "_Well, you better hurry up, loverboy! The dinner's gonna get cold!_" There was a pause. "_Where are you?_"

"I'm five blocks away, at some bookstore." A sigh.

"_Well, hurry up, okay? See you!_" then he hung up. Yamato snapped his phone shut and shoved it in his pocket. Then, he exited the bookstore into the piercing winter.

Since it was winter, the sun set a lot faster. And the once blazing half circle was now just a stain in the sky. Yamato trudged down the concrete street, his breath billowing out in a cloud of fog and his trembling fingers clutched even tighter to his jacket. As the last stains of red turned to dark maroon, then finally black, the streetlights became the only lights beside the sparkling stars. Along with the stains, the 'gentle' wind disappeared. Of course, Yamato hadn't thought that was gentle, but after the wind picked up and drove ice picks through his entire body, he would have killed for the earlier wind.

Suddenly, Yamato stopped and looked up, searching for a sign that signaled where he needed to turn. It was a store sign, signaling an old bar, but it was neon and was hard to miss. It was right at an intersection, and that was the corner he was looking for. Though, he squinted, he could not see the familiar neon sign.

Yamato's heart fell into his stomach, and the two held onto each other for dear life. Another savage wind racked his thin frame and he looked around for a sign, but there was not but streetlights.

He panicked. Yamato took a dash down the street, then stopped at an intersection. Taking the road that looked the most familiar, he ran down the street, finding it oddly peculiar how the only sound was his own footsteps as they echoed around and up the tall-sided buildings… then rebounded off the dead end.

"Dead end?" Yamato stopped and asked the nonfeeling bricks. They answered with hard indifference.

"Can't you see that?" a rough voice asked from too close behind him. Startled, he jumped and turned around, only to be grabbed by the shoulders and pressed into the bricks he had so politely conversed with.

"I-I don't have any money…" Yamato growled, suddenly feeling weak and vulnerable. He saw quickly that he was outnumbered, but he wouldn't let them see him fret.

"Hey, isn't that the singer? In that one band you showed me? Uh… Teenage Wolves?" The man pushing him to the wall asked back to the crowd. A voice piped in a 'yes' and the man grinned, the pale light from the streetlights reflecting off their yellow tint.

"No money? Well I'm sure we can find a way to get some… don't you worry your pretty blond head about it…" the man ran his hand through Yamato's hair, causing a shiver to run down his spine. A small vibration broke the chilled silence as Yamato's phone vibrated in his back pocket against the wall. He bit his bottom lip, but didn't move his hand. "Well, there's no reason to be rude, answer the phone!"

_Come on, Taichi… why now?_ Yamato thought as he pulled out the phone and flipped it open. He didn't even get his full sentence out before his friend cut him off. "Hel-"

"_Yamato!! WHERE? ARE? YOU? I've got the lovebirds here and they're driving me INSANE! Insane I tell you! If you don't hurry, you're paying he asylum bill!_" the cornered singer would've laughed at his friend's overreaction, but now didn't seem the fitting time for levity. He would simply let him ramble on. "_…And- are you listening to me? Yamato! Where are you?"_ Yamato snapped back at Taichi's aggravation.

"I… got a little caught up on the way…"

"_Ugh! Sora again?! Look, you can't bail out on me every time she comes waltzing up the road!"_

"Look man, Sora's not in town. She's visiting family. I just didn't feel like explaining that earlier."

"_Then… what's wrong?_" Yamato noticed Taichi's voice change to a deep tone of worry. He shot a quick glance at the man before answering.

"I got lost, couldn't find the sign," Yamato heard a growl and flinched closer to the wall. The man's other hand shot out and grabbed the cell phone.

"_Sign? What sign?! I told you to stop reading those cult pamphlets!_" he sighed as he heard Taichi's voice crackle out over the phone. The man looked at the phone then snapped it shut and shoved it in Yamato's jacket pocket.

"You better hope if he comes looking he has money…" the man growled. Yamato squinted his eyes shut and tried to wish it was all away… but the cold, metallic kiss of a blade against his throat said otherwise. He swallowed, and heard a chuckle rise out of the crowd and spread like a disease. "But in the meantime, lets have some fun?" Cheers lit up from the gang, yells of 'go Damien' or 'let me have some!'

Damien swung Yamato around from the wall and threw him into the crowd, but before he did he stabbed his blade into his upper arm and it trailed down to his wrist. After that, he remembered nothing, nothing but the searing pain in his arm and the cold kiss of the first snowflake of the season.

Finally, it all stopped. And a flood of pain made him want to curl up and hide, but the best he could do was allow his mind to cringe and try and dilute the pain. He vaguely felt the brick wall against his back and Damien's hot breath in his face, but nothing else. He heard enough to tell he wasn't going to get any lucky breaks.

"We could get a pretty penny for this kid…" sirens lit up the cold night, their blaring wails making Yamato cringe and physically flinch. A single gasp came from the group all as one and Damien let out a string of curses. He dropped Yamato and all that was left of the gang was echoing footsteps and wounds too deep for him to bear.

* * *

Eventually, the sirens died down and the smell of smoke began to drift toward the broken man. Yamato let out a shaky breath as convulsions racked his body. The piercing cold continued to slash through him. His pocket vibrated against his chest, but he didn't have the energy to answer it. He wouldn't even open his eyes to see if the blood around his head was actually his.

The hours passed, _or has it been days?_ Yamato knew that even if the sun rose, he'd still be in darkness in the alley. He shivered at the thought and tried to curl up. He ignored the frantic screams of his body. For the past couple of hours (_or days_) his phone had hardly stopped vibrating. He wanted to answer it, he really did, but he knew the exertion was beyond him.

A bright light suddenly blared down on him, causing a rasping yelp to escape his throat and his eyes to twinge tighter. Then, it switched off just as quickly as it turned on, and he heard a jumble of noises. It sounded like voices, then he noticed it was only one, familiar and worried, voice.

_Taichi…_ his mind whispered the word and it brought a sense of reassurance through his body, numbing the pain slightly. He began to focus on the words.

"Yamato! What happened to you? I've been looking all over for you man," Yamato figured he must've realized that he wasn't moving any time soon. "Oh God…" He felt a warm hand on his cheek, and then another one on his hand as his friend examined the damage. His numb arm was turned this way and that, and Yamato realized with chagrin that it must be the arm that was stabbed. Then it started raining… but it was hot as it dripped on his face and it felt good. A rain drop slid down his cheek and into his mouth and Yamato noticed it tasted salty.

Without warning, two solid arms wrapped under his back and under his knees and he was lifted into the air, gently. Yamato's head lolled into Taichi's chest and he noticed fondly that he smelt of food. _Of course he wouldn't wait for me_. Something happened and Taichi cursed, bringing the whole empty part of the night back with absurd clarity. Yamato yelped and clenched to Taichi's shirt, afraid that if he let go he might feel the pain, alone again.

"Oh Yamato…" Taichi sighed, sadly watching as his friend was tormented inwardly. He gently brushed some blond strands off of the singer's forehead and marched on, intent on getting him home.

The familiar smell of home mixed with the foody smell of… well food woke Yamato from his slightly forced slumber. He managed to crack open his eyes, and was thankful for the damp rag over his eyes. He clenched at his blanket and wondered exactly how he got home. He slowly removed the rag, just in time to see Taichi enter the room with a plate of food. He grinned and pulled up a chair next to the bed.

"Mornin!" he laughed, gently placing the tray on Yamato's bed and popping open a soda. He cracked a weak grin and looked at the food. "It was too loud at my place so I figured we could chill at yours! I figured I could bring you a doggy bag, so there," he took a sip of the soda and waved at the tray. Yamato felt his stomach drop.

"Taichi! You should go back to your house. It's Christmas, for Heaven's sake," Yamato said, looking at his friend's good-natured face. But in his eyes, all he saw was worry.

"And what a better way to spend it than with my crippled best friend?" he asked, tipping his soda like a toast.

"With your family?" Yamato jabbed, taking a bite of his food. Taichi sighed.

"You are my family. And I'm sure you need me more then they do," he muttered, nervously glancing at Yamato's bruised body. "You can't move it, can you?" The singer glanced at his arm and tried, only to be rewarded with a sharp pain.

"I can, but…"

"I figured as much. Man, what happened to you?" Yamato's hand started to shake so hard he almost dropped his glass, he sat it down and mentally traced the design on his bed spread.

"I made a wrong turn, and met a gang," he sighed.

"A gang? Meaning more than one?"

"That's usually what a gang consists of. They knew who I was and wanted money," he muttered, his throat beginning to close up so he took a drink of water. There was a tight crinkle of aluminum and Yamato looked down to see Taichi's grip harden on the can.

"A ransom?" his voice sounded livid. Yamato had avoided thinking that word, but now that it was out he realized the trouble he could've been in.

"Yeah, but they heard a fire truck's sirens and beat it. Thought it was the cops," Yamato chanced a look at Taichi to see that he had conflicted emotions. "Taichi?"

"I'm sorry!" he burst out, his face a mask of agony. "I should've come sooner! As soon as you hung up on me I should've known something was wrong! If that fire hadn't happened, you could've been gone… and I might not've ever seen you again."

"It's okay, it was my fault anyway. I got lost looking for that bar." Taichi agony turned into confusion.

"What bar?"

"The one down at the intersection."

Taichi shook his head. "Yamato, that bars been closed for a long time. Leave it to you…"

"Well I haven't visited in a long time." Yamato looked at Taichi, and saw that look of humor back in his eyes.

"Yeah, but you'll have a live-in maid in me until you get better!" Taichi winked and leaned back in his chair. Yamato rolled his eyes.

"Oh great. As if I didn't see you enough already."

"Aw admit it! You can never get enough of me!"

Yamato sighed, "You're my friend, I'd hate to offend you."

_Hope you enjoyed it!_


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